


the moment where you and i have crossed paths.

by sanlight



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: ANGST ???, M/M, Multi, and nowhere to shove them in, because idk i have too many plots, so lets go i guess, this is part of the dinero peso yen universe, uh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-16
Updated: 2019-02-16
Packaged: 2019-10-29 17:21:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,595
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17812202
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sanlight/pseuds/sanlight
Summary: dinero peso yen has too many side plots and i need somewhere to cram them in.(1) johnkun/johnten — “i hope someone breaks your heart the same way you broke mine.”





	the moment where you and i have crossed paths.

(1)

 

“So,” Ten says, and his eyes flit past the needle in his hand to the side of Kun’s face, “ _you’re_ Kun.”

 

His voice, Kun thinks, doesn’t really match his features. It’s sharp and soft, like the sound of chimes in the wind, but the rest of him is bruised and scarred. Cuts on his torso, a scar on his chin, marks marring skin like cursed brands. His eyes are different too. Cold and hard, like those of soldiers.

 

“Depends on who’s asking,” Kun says, quietly. Jeno had needed multiple surgeries to get fixed, and months of recovery time. In contrast, Ten seemed barely injured aside eabout from the massive cut on his abdomen. (Doyoung had stitched it up — it was a unanimous decision to keep Taeil and Jungwoo out of it.) Its probably because Jeno was separated and Ten was alone.

 

“Ten,” he says. The corner of his bruised lips quirk up into an impassive, almost mocking smile. “You’re even more impressive in person than they describe you to be.”

 

Kun’s hands pause while slipping the needle out. “They?”

 

“Hyuna and her posse of young boys,” Ten says, absentmindedly. His words still aren’t slurring even though there are painkillers in his system. “Enjoyed your time with them?”

 

“If multiple attempts on my life could be considered enjoyment, then sure,” Kun presses a swab of cotton onto the puncture and covers it up with tape. Ten laughs airily at that.

 

“Figured,” Ten’s eyes are sharp when they meet Kun’s. “They don’t call you by name there.”

 

“Really?”

 

“Yeah,” Ten smiles. A real, full smile with an edge of drunkenness and a slight hint of carelessness. “It was usually _that_ _motherfucker_.”

 

Kun shrugs, though the curve of his lips must have given his pleasure away. “That’s fair,” he says. Ten is still watching him, the dim light from the monitors the only glow in his dark eyes. Kun gathers his stethoscope and the files on the table, along with the blood samples bottled on the nightstand, and adds, “Doyoung will be here soon. I’ll leave now.”

 

There are cold, rough fingers against his wrist when he turns to leave. He pauses, turning around to face Ten. Ten’s eyes are slowly drooping.

 

“Good night,” he says, breathily. His hands feel like shards of fine glass against Kun’s skin. “I want to see Johnny. Can I?”

 

Of course. Johnny and Ten. Star crossed lovers.

 

“I’ll ask the boss,” Kun says, responsibly, and pries Ten’s fingers off his wrist before leaving. His hands are shaking when he shuts the door behind him, and he isn’t sure why.

 

___

 

(2)

 

Love is a dumb, bitter thing.

 

That used to be Sicheng’s narrative, anyway. When the two of them were in their teens, Kun in school and Sicheng under the thumb of Kim Minseok and his men, Kun had asked him how he felt about the topic of love. He’d hesitated only for the barest moment before saying that it was dumb and bitter. His parents had never loved each other, his mother a common street whore and his father a gambling alcoholic. They hadn’t loved him either, so when his father sold him off to a rich man, he hadn’t been too hurt about it. He didn’t know any form of love, and he didn’t care either.

 

But Kun did. Back then, falling in love had meant the world to him. He’d wanted one of those sappy love stories with a nice beginning, preferably at a sea side with the sea breeze in his hair. He’d wanted all those different type of kisses, the soft ones against his lips first thing in the morning and the rough ones on his neck when he goes to sleep at night. He’d wanted a hand to hold, someone to call his own. He’s thinking now that that was probably his biggest mistake.

 

And now, years later, it’s the exact opposite. Love is a dumb, bitter thing is now Kun’s narrative, and love is a hopeful, wonderful thing is now Sicheng’s. It’ll be funny if it wasn’t so sad.

 

Sicheng doesn’t talk about Taeil unless he has to, but ever since he met Taeil there’s been something distinctively less reckless about him. He’s more careful when he goes out. The scars that used to get on his wrist and his neck retreat to places he can hide them easier. He doesn’t mouth off to opponents or pick fights as much as he used to. He’s subdued, kind of.

 

Kun knows that he wants Taeil to see him as Sicheng and not Winwin. Winwin was a name that struck fear in anyone who had crossed his path and given them nightmares, the boy who had shot his first gun at seventeen and never looked back, the boy who had sworn to protect Neo with everything he has when he was eighteen, but Sicheng was the kid who still liked ice cream after every meal and watched reruns of dramas he liked and liked wearing sweaters because they remind him of warm hugs. He doesn’t want Taeil to know the part of him that grew up too fast and wants to only show him the happy, likeable parts of him. Kun thinks that’s going to end up as a fucking disaster, but he’s also willing to go with it since Sicheng seems to know what he’s doing.

 

That’s what Sicheng had done for him too, back when he’d fallen for Johnny. That’s what Sicheng is still doing for him since he never got over Johnny in the first place. He figures he owes it to him.

 

He still thinks of it, from time to time. It’s something he’s gotten good at ignoring, but something that never left him. It just stuck to him like gum to the bottom of the metaphorical shoe that was his life. He’ll think of the taste of Johnny’s lips against his, the feeling of his fingers ghosting past the bumps on his knuckles, the way his voice always wavered whenever he said I love you. (The waver meant that he didn’t mean it. Kun had been too blind to realize it then.) He hated those moments. Hated them more than he hated Johnny sometimes.

 

And yet, somehow, he never quite had the courage in him to break Johnny. His stony indifference towards him has less to do with how he wants Johnny to suffer and more to do with how he can’t bring himself to say anything in fear of his own emotions falling over like a broken dam.

 

Sicheng knows that too. He’s kind enough to not mention it, the same way Kun never talks about how different Sicheng and Taeil are.

 

“You’re going to have to talk to me at one point,” Johnny had said one day. It had been a week after they broke up and Kun started sleeping on the gurney outside the infirmary so he wouldn’t have to risk running into Johnny on his way to his room on the sixth floor. Johnny’s fingers were warm and familiar against his wrist. He’d hated it.

 

Kun had tugged his arm away, given him a cold, icy stare even though his heart was eating itself alive in his chest, roaring like a monster in its cage, and said, “I’ll hold it off until I absolutely have to, then.”

 

When he’d left, he hadn’t looked back, mostly because he’d heard the pained hiss that had come out of Johnny’s lips when he’d turned to go.

 

__

 

(3)

 

Johnny and Ten were still in love.

 

Of course they were.

 

Kun doesn’t make his distaste for that fact obvious. He stamps it down because that’s what he’s meant to do, tells himself to suck it up, and coops himself up in Taeil’s work station to do research because that’s the only way he can avoid the sight of Johnny and Ten holding hands in the ICU with the open doors. If anyone notices, they don’t say anything to him, and whenever it’s his turn to deal with Ten, Yuta miraculously has a set of tasks that Johnny needs to complete. It’s both a blessing and a curse.

 

“They’re not dating,” Doyoung says. He’s always been good at reading Kun inside out.

 

“I didn’t ask,” Kun says.

 

“I know,” Doyoung says. He has a scar on his neck where Jeno had struck him this morning. “But they’re not dating. Ten doesn’t want to stay. He’ll leave as soon as the Winwin situation blows over.”

 

Taeil’s fingers stop tapping on the keyboard. He’d been told, yesterday, that he and Jungwoo could safely return to their lives back in the city as soon as they found the location of the guys who were onto Sicheng and eliminated them. Kun thought that he’d be happy about it. Trauma was uncommon in Neo and Taeil’s life seemingly revolved around trauma, but somehow, he seems less enthusiastic about leaving now.

 

“Leave?” Taeil asks.

 

“Yeah, leave.” Doyoung’s lips thin over slightly. “Taeyong-hyung hoped he’d stay, but he said he had other shit to do. Jeno is staying, though.”

 

Kun pauses. “And Yangyang?”

 

“Not sure,” Doyoung says. “He hasn’t given a definite answer yet.”

 

An hour later, Kun peers into the ICU to find Johnny sleeping on the plastic chair by the bed, his hand linked with Ten’s hard enough that his knuckles are turning white.

 

 _He’s going to be heartbroken when Ten leaves,_  Kun thinks, but somehow, he feels sick when he thinks about it.

 

He turns around and leaves before either of them notice that he’s there.

**Author's Note:**

> stream hala hala by ateez


End file.
